


Shadows of the Past

by TwelveLeagues



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: But Javert is even creepier, Father-Daughter Relationship, M/M, Sleep Deprivation, Supernatural Elements, The Gorbeau house is creepy, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 03:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16400090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwelveLeagues/pseuds/TwelveLeagues
Summary: Jean Valjean guards what little light he has and Javert faces temptation.





	Shadows of the Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Esteliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/gifts).



> Happy halloween! Here is some atmospheric Gorbeau house, a bit of Javert pursuing Valjean in Paris. Oh and Javert has a thirst for human blood and a hopefully Javert-like attitude towards his thirst for human blood.

Jean Valjean did not wait for the sun to fully set before he locked the door of his room. It was a useless precaution and, he hoped, an unnecessary one. But he could not bring himself to shed the habit.

The Gorbeau hovel was never entirely quiet at night. There is something restless about a shared house, particularly the low-rent kind where occupants might work irregular hours. Jean Valjean was the only guest besides the portress, but he was always braced for the arrival of others. Occasionally he fancied he heard the sound of whispers in the corridor at night and pressed his fingers to his lips, hoping against hope that the sound would not wake Cosette.

But there was more to it than that. The house itself would not settle. The floorboards protested every misjudged step. If the wrong door was pulled open without due care, its hinges would howl. Even the timber in the walls groaned on windy evenings. It was as though the old house knew its miserable station in life and was determined to revenge itself upon its occupants. 

Jean Valjean bore these small inconveniences well enough. The house was not as comfortably furnished as his rooms had been in Montreuil, but the Orion had been enough to remind him what it meant to live without luxury. Furthermore, this room was brightened by something he had never known before: Fantine’s child, whose presence was worth more than all the comforts of a magistrate’s home.

Their days were quiet but joyful. Jean Valjean found games to entertain Cosette. He read aloud to her until she could read along with him. He performed that rare conjuring trick that troubled people with young children find necessary. Even as the world surrounding the room threatened him with shadows, he kept the space between their four walls bright. And in return, her good spirits gave him cause to keep performing his illusions.

Cosette had known her own hardships and was not concerned by drafty windowpanes or crumbling walls. She laughed at the cobwebs and found the creakiest floorboard to bounce on. Every moment she was awake, she brought the room to cheerful life, and if she could have held herself up for longer, she would have kept the small room bright until dawn. 

But after their first few nights in the Gorbeau house, Jean Valjean’s serenity was broken by a familiar instinct. As the sky grew darker, he shuddered in a way he had not done since his time in Montreuil.

“It is nothing,” he muttered under his breath as he double-checked the locked door. “I have been on the run too long.”

But even so, from that night on he insisted on tucking Cosette under the covers before the sun had set. And as she slept, curled up beneath two heavy blankets, he sat in the stiff-backed armchair in the corner of the room and watched the shadows stretch across the wooden floor.

Certain rumours had circulated in Toulon and never quite died down. When so many men are packed together in so small a space, tragedies are inevitable. A particularly cruel winter saw the loss of more men than usual, and those who remained found their own explanations for the tragedy. Young Thomas coughed so loudly he disturbed the other men’s sleep, so the guards bundled him wheezing and pleading to the medic. He never returned.

“Watch out for that one,” Brujon had hissed, elbowing Valjean as a young guard passed. The man’s knuckles were a stark white around his cudgel. “Dead eyes, pale lips. He’s been cursed, no question. You can spot it a mile off. Don’t let him catch you alone.”

If the guard overheard them, he showed no sign of it. But the crack of his heels against the cobblestones was enough to disperse any prisoners in his path. Jean Valjean scoffed at the rumour, but he heeded Brujon’s words. And when that sharp-eyed young guard left, it was an unexpected relief.

There were no such rumours in Montreuil. Death was not so frequent in the town as it was in Toulon, and the town gossips had more pressing concerns than matters best left to the police. But there was no doubt in Jean Valjean’s mind that the police inspector stationed in the town was that same dead-eyed guard who had stalked the bagne.

Monsieur Madeleine and Inspector Javert had circled one another warily. If both men harboured suspicions about the other, neither was prepared to step forward and make an accusation. It would be madness to speak out against Javert. To give voice to rumours that seemed laughable in the light of day would be to expose his own past. Perhaps this was why Javert waited so long to speak, resigning himself to scrutinising the mayor from a distance.

In the evenings, Javert patrolled the streets of Montreuil, his long shadow stretching across dimly lit stone. Jean Valjean had watched from his chamber window, rosary beads clutched in his palm and a guarded candle lit to keep the darkness at bay. He kept his door locked. And although he once courted scandal by inviting young ladies of the town to examine his rooms, he never extended that invitation to the police inspector who watched him so closely.

Jean Valjean had come to learn, partly through a curious perfume that he perceived in the air and partly through an instinct of his own that he could not name, when Javert’s patrol took him close to his window. A prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck was enough to remind him to fasten the bolts and cross himself. And so it was that when Valjean saw a long shadow fall across the threshold of the Gorbeau hovel, those same hairs prickled again.

He had seen no evidence of Javert himself, either on the street or in the corridors of the house. But somehow the evidence of his presence was everywhere, from the brisk clip of boots on the other side of the locked door to the anxious instinct that dogged at Valjean’s heels. An animal instinct spurred him from within, urging him to gather up the child in his arms and flee. But Javert had already laid his trap and there was no doubt that, wherever he was hiding, he had his eye fixed on the locked door. 

Or perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps he was mad.

But when darkness fell, he had his answer.

At the darkest point of the night, when sleep was dragging at the edges of Valjean’s thoughts, he caught a hint of that most terrifying and familiar of scents. It was metallic and intoxicating, carrying with it the memory of wind-blasted sea walls and narrow cobbled streets, all saturated with a sickening sweetness. At the height of his fever, Thomas had sworn he smelled lilies. And now it seemed that strange perfume had clung to Valjean and followed him here, filling up his senses until his mind moved more slowly than it did even during sleep.

 _Stand up_ , a voice rang out through the silence, but the child did not stir. Jean Valjean sat frozen, no longer knowing whether he was asleep or awake. _Open your door. It is all over now, Jean Valjean._

Hearing his name — even within the privacy of his own mind — was enough to jolt him out of his torpor. He woke, breath coming in a shocked gasp, hands gripping the arms of his chair.

In the bed, Cosette still slept peacefully. The room smelt of nothing but damp wood and the vulnerable tang of cold sweat. He stood, moving as if in a dream to rest shaking hands on the locks of the door. They were secure, for all the good it would do him. Finally he knelt in prayer. He did not sleep again that night.

In the light of day, the Gorbeau hovel was almost cheerful. Cosette’s laughter rang as brightly as it did on any other day, and Jean Valjean watched her with a pensive fondness. He could not say for certain that it was Javert’s shadow intruding on his nights. But what else could it be?

His body ached as the day wore on, weighed down by a restless anxiety. He left Cosette in their room when he stepped out for an evening walk, calculating that the child seemed untroubled by the Gorbeau hovel’s peculiarities, and the dangers without were surely greater than those within. He swore to her her ten times over that he would not be gone for long, and she begrudgingly accepted his promise, watching with a cool acceptance as he pulled on his tattered yellow coat. 

The street was colder than he had expected and fraught with a newfound threat. Dark shadows flickered at the periphery of his vision. Was that the tail of a black frock coat disappearing around a corner? Were those straight shoulders as familiar as they seemed? He passed a market stall perfumed with incense and doubled his pace, burying his face in the folds of his coat.

In the distance there was music playing. He could hear the shouts of children playing some game that he could not see. Jean Valjean kept away from the crowds, exchanged a few coins for a wooden spinning top that would serve as a peace offering for Cosette. The incense still seemed to hang in the air, though he had long since passed the stall. His body felt unnaturally heavy, as though his blood was running slowly in his veins.

A woman in rags sat at the bottom of the church’s steps, following him across the square with a focused gaze. Jean Valjean pressed a coin to her palm with a few muttered words. There was too little time. He hurried forward, lips tingling with a sensation both new and somehow familiar. Somewhere a vesper bell chimed. The sun was already setting, staining the sky a blood-soaked colour. His nerves were prickling with too little sleep and too much adrenaline. 

This would not do, he told himself firmly. There were more things to fear in Paris than a single policeman, and any number of them might take advantage of him in this state. He plunged a hand into his coat pocket and, as his fingers brushed the polished surface of the wooden top, found the strength to move forward. The house was not far. He could make it home before the light was entirely gone.

There was nothing unusual about the figure of the aging beadle who huddled in his usual place beside the old well. If Jean Valjean’s steps grew heavier as he approached, he did not observe the difference. The scent of perfume still lingered — by this point it had clung to him for so long, he had almost accepted its sickly insistence. And so, it was not until he dropped a silver coin in front of the familiar figure that Jean Valjean realised his mistake.

The beggar raised his head and Jean Valjean sprung backwards, heart pounding. His pulse jerked to life and his muscles clenched, his nervous system primed to flee. But as Javert raised his head and drew himself to his feet, Jean Valjean’s legs were stone. He could not move an inch.

Around them, the sounds of the street fell away. No passerby spared a second glance as the long-legged beggar stalked closer to the man in the ragged yellow coat. The perfume that hung in the air grew sweeter, as though something beautiful was rotting away.

“So it is you,” Javert said softly, his eyes moving over Valjean’s body, taking in first his disguise and then the breadth of his shoulders, the weight of his thighs and finally his face. Valjean’s heart pounded, his eyes darting in search of an exit. There were plenty of alleys and mingling crowds a man might disappear into. But he was frozen in place under Javert’s focused attention.

Javert stepped closer. His lips were more pale than they had been in the bagne or in Montreuil. His eyes were a hollow black. And Jean Valjean, who knew better than most what it meant to be pursued by the police, was shaken as he had never been before. Javert inhaled.

“How many times must I run you to ground, Jean Valjean?” Javert’s voice was low. He laid a hand on the collar of the tattered yellow coat, tugging it down until the cool evening air touched Valjean’s jaw. Valjean’s skin tingled at the chill, unexpectedly sensitive. “How many times will I be forced to discipline myself because you have no discipline of your own?”

Javert’s breath was shivering cold against his flesh and Jean Valjean could not pull himself away, could not shove Javert backwards or flee. Had Javert always held this power over him? He knew the look in Javert’s eyes — it was not so different from the faces of the poor wretches he passed by every day — but had never seen it focused so directly upon himself.

There were images seeping into his mind. Blood-soaked visions of himself: Stripped bare and delivered to justice; pressed against the wall of his factory, his head tilted back and his throat exposed; crouched in a dark corner of a store-room at Toulon, waiting to be consumed. Was that what had become of poor Thomas all those years ago?

“Javert, this is not who you are,” Valjean found his voice, barely audible as it was. “I can see that you’re hungry. When did you last...” Eat? _Feed_? He shuddered at the thought and Javert snarled, stepping backwards and pressing a hand to his temple.

“Do not presume to talk about things you don’t understand,” Javert snapped. He drew a shaking breath, eyes roaming over Jean Valjean’s body again but drawn inexorably back to his throat. He pressed closer and Valjean exhaled in shock as he realised that his body had responded. Javert glanced down at the space between them and sneered.

“I’ve been hungry for as long as you’ve known me, one way or another. Not all of us consider hunger an excuse.”

Valjean’s chest rose and fell. A thousand possible futures were colliding in his mind, none of them hopeful. There was something half-starved and terrifyingly powerful that Javert kept leashed within himself. Something that reached into his thoughts and whispered promises of long, empty sleep. Would it not be easier to lay down his burdens and bend his neck for the beast? Was this how his journey would end? With Javert’s cold hand on his shoulder once and for all, his life seeping away as the child waited patiently for his promised return?

 _No_. He jerked backwards, almost falling off balance at the unexpected motion. Javert straightened at the sight, eyes narrowing. And then he lurched forward with unexpected strength, laying one hand on Valjean’s shoulder and another on his shirt front.

“How did you—?” he demanded. But Valjean would not wait. He wrenched himself free, staggering backwards, his breath coming in harsh bursts. Javert’s eyes followed him, dark and sharp as ever. And still deadly, even at a distance. He laughed and Valjean shuddered at the harsh sound that still echoed through Valjean’s memory.

“Well then, perhaps this is as it should be. I am here on the law’s behalf, after all, not my own.” Was Javert speaking the words aloud? Valjean could hear him clearly, though now there were a good eight feet or more between them. He turned, heart pounding, and made for a crowd, pulling his cap down to cover his face. Still Javert’s words echoed in his ears. _Very well, Jean Valjean. Run back to your hiding place. But know that we are coming for you._

He dared a glance over his shoulder, half afraid that Javert was still at his heels. But the old beggar was gone. Valjean swallowed hard. The evening had fully settled now and Cosette was still waiting in the Gorbeau house. He focused his mind on her distant presence, a pinpoint of light in the Parisian gloom. The spinning top was still in his pocket. He would return to their room and light their candles. She might amuse herself with the top while he packed their things as quickly and silently as possible. And as elegantly as a conjurer, he would make them disappear.

But he would have to act quickly, he thought as he redoubled his pace. Javert was starving, no matter how tight a rein he kept on himself. And Jean Valjean knew better than most what a starving man might do.


End file.
